Anthropologist Debunks Bill Gates' BS Narrative That Free-Market Capitalism Has Solved Crisis...

[guillaumeb]

Anthropologist Debunks Bill Gates' BS Narrative That Free-Market Capitalism Has Solved Crisis of Global Poverty

From the article:

Anthropologist and author Jason Hickel swiftly disabused readers of a narrative offered by Microsoft founder Bill Gates this week, rejecting the billionaire's statement on Twitter that "people underestimate just how much life has improved over the last two centuries."
The idea that the free-market capitalism has grown while solving the crisis of extreme poverty around the world may be tempting for some to embrace, Hickel wrote in the Guardian—but it is "completely wrong."...….


"Our world is richer than ever before, but virtually all of it is being captured by a small elite," Hickel wrote. "Only five percent of all new income from global growth trickles down to the poorest 60 percent—and yet they are the people who produce most of the food and goods that the world consumes, toiling away in those factories, plantations and mines to which they were condemned 200 years ago. It is madness—and no amount of mansplaining from billionaires will be adequate to justify it."

To read more:

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/02/01/anthropologist-debunks-bill-gates-bs-narrative-free-market-capitalism-has-solved?cd-origin=rss&utm_term=Anthropologist%20Debunks%20Bill%20Gates%27%20BS%20Narrative%20That%20Free-

[democratisphere]

1. Gates has been wealthy for so long, he is now out of touch

with everyday American life.

[guillaumeb]

2. And he feels that his wealth makes him infallible.

Surrounded by yes men, he probably thinks that he is perfect.

[democratisphere]

3. Agreed.

[still_one]

5. You do know what the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation does don't you?

[guillaumeb]

9. How does that relate to this article?

Many predatory capitalists started foundations.

Perhaps a sense of guilt?

[still_one]

13. It relates to the comments being made how out of touch Gates is. He isn't out of touch, People like

Gates and Buffet plan to give the majority of their money to charity, not to their children.


As for the OP, the Democratic Socialist Nordic countries practice free market economics, (capitalism), which has been so successful they have been able to provide generous government programs in exchange for the taxes they levy.

[guillaumeb]

16. And in a higher tax system,

Gates and Buffet and the others in their class would never have had the obscene amount of money that they have.

The current US system enables the billionaire class to exist, and we are supposed to be properly grateful for their largesse.

[democratisphere]

15. Sure. But I also know most of their support and development

at Microsoft is from Asia or is provided by visas to the US. 3rd world situations are hugely different than living paycheck to paycheck in America while attempting to merely exist.

[Blue_true]

14. He was born into a fairly well off household.

He entered Harvard, but dropped out after one or two years and moved West to California (if I remember correctly) and ultimately to near Seattle Washington. So he never knew what poverty felt like, maybe he was occasionally short on cash during his young years after dropping out, but Mommy or Daddy could wire him money - that is not the same as a person being in Monday on the 18th wondering what choice he or she will need to make about paying rent or having enough to eat on the 1st when rent is typically due.

[X_Digger]

4. Gates' statement is demonstrably true.

Even if you change Gates' statement to 50 years, it's still true.

Fewer children are going to bed hungry, world-wide*. Teen pregnancy is down*. Literacy is up*. War is down*. Violent crime, while volatile in any four or five year span, is also down from 200 years ago*. Infant mortality is down*. Lifespans are longer. Vaccines, medical technology and pharmacology- can anyone say it was better 200 years ago?


* https://ourworldindata.org/hunger-and-undernourishment
* https://www.childtrends.org/indicators/teen-pregnancy
* https://ourworldindata.org/literacy
* https://www.vox.com/2015/6/23/8832311/war-casualties-600-years
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States
* https://ourworldindata.org/homicides
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infant_mortality

[Sgent]

6. Agree

Extreme poverty is down drastically, and I'm not sure what wealth distribution has to do with it.

[dpibel]

11. Oh that correlation thing

Assuming the truth of all those statistics, they do not actually demonstrate the efficacy of capitalism.

[X_Digger]

12. Who said it did? Bill Gates didn't. Or did you reply without even looking at the tweet? n/t

[Blue_true]

17. The comments to the tweet were far more informative than the tweet.

Standards of living have improved over the last 200 years. But if a person looks at the last 30 years, average standards of living are dropping as are people's expectation that they will do better in life than their parents. Also, average lifespans have started to decline, even as medical technology that can save more people improves.

I think that it is more informative to consider things from the perspective of time periods over that 200 year period, say in periods of 40 years, and then look at the relative happiness in different places on earth. I person in the deepest reaches of the Amazon 160 years ago would not know about the rest of the world or it's living standard if that person's living area was not colonized, so even if that person lived in dire poverty, pretty much everyone else did no, so that person was likely content with his or her standard of living because it was the norm. But if you look at 20 years ago (the middle of the last 40 year block of time), the Amazon person would likely have encountered people that had much more, things that the Amazon person wanted, so then that Amazon person's relative standard of living would not be what he or she desired.

I don't know what the answer is. The concept of a GBI is intriguing, but there are many gotchas with such a system that people just are not thinking about. One that I think about often is whether society will try to dictate who reproduce (everyone make their choice, or will there be a push to have certain people breed). My concern may seem outrageous, but our history as beings are filled with attempt at reproduction control to produce what the adherents called a better population, and every time, gross and murderous inhumanity have been the outcomes.

[X_Digger]

18. Even at 30/40 years, we're still better than we were then.

The same links above demonstrate that.

Measurable, life-altering conditions like poverty, hunger, health, infant death.

[Blue_true]

19. If you took any period during that 200 years, both our arguments will seem true.

In the last 20 years suicide rates are up, why is that? The average savings in households relative to income are down. People use cars longer today than in 1999, why is that? Women are having fewer babies, due largely to more women working and having higher educations, but that trend affects mortality statistics, the more babies a woman conceive, the greater that likelihood that some will be stillborn or die as infants.

[X_Digger]

20. One is statistically, provably true.

I tend to focus on things that have a huge impact. How much time one spends in a car kind of pales in comparison to are your children hungry.

Regarding the mortality rate, it's just that- a rate, per 1,000 births. Fewer births, more births- don't tend to affect the rate per se.

[Blue_true]

21. True.

But how mortality is happening is important, who are dying and which groups are having more babies affects long term societal direction. How long people keep vehicles is an indicator of changing economic prospects, the longer a vehicle is kept, the worst those prospects are.

[littlemissmartypants]

7. All of Bill and Melissa and their multiple narratives deserve the

Same treatment. The fact that they believe they can run roughshod over people and their cultural, personal and societal ways and beliefs, from American to Africa, just because they have money is criminal.

They have endorsed a birth control method that is toxic, doesn't work and harms women and families for years, Essure. If it were not for a grassroots effort by women in the USA and other participant countries worldwide, which has for years championed the push to have it removed from the market, many women would still be getting implanted with this horrible device.

The Gates Foundation has continued to financially support the implantation of African women with the full knowledge of the dangers associated with Essure. It is not clear, though the FDA will be pulling the device, thanks to the persistent efforts of women suffering irreparable damage by the device, if the Gates Foundation plans to stop paying for the implants in Africa.

Money can't buy morals.

https://essureproblems.webs.com/home

[guillaumeb]

10. Very well said.

Money can buy positive publicity.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

8. Thanks for posting that article as a leader. Here's a link to the original...

Bill Gates says poverty is decreasing. He couldn’t be more wrong
An infographic endorsed by the Davos set presents the story of coerced global proletarianisation as a neoliberal triumph
Jason Hickel
@jasonhickel
Tue 29 Jan 2019 09.28 GMT

Link (embedded in original Common Dreams article): https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/29/bill-gates-davos-global-poverty-infographic-neoliberal

Also learned a new word today: "disabused"........

The song "War" (Edwin Starr) is appropriate but replace "war" with "Davos"...

Davos, huh, yeah,
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing.

[eppur_se_muova]

22. New word: "tycoonsplaining" nt

[guillaumeb]

23. Another category of "explaining"? Agreed. eom